Baxter Info Session: Resume Building

This year, Baxter BioScience visited our SWE chapter for an infosession on November 15, 2011. Around 35 students were in attendance to learn about the full time opportunities that Baxter had available such as their Engineering Development Program. Industry representatives, Emily Tokeshi-Torres and Renee Gilmore, enlightened students on the work and company culture at Baxter especially at the Southern California locations. Following a presentation on Baxter and its products, Emily and Renee helped out the students in attendance by offering resume building advice including numerous “Do's and Don'ts.” Following the workshop, students were encouraged to talk one on one to either of the industry representatives in order to apply for positions or gain feedback on how to improve their resumes. It turned out to be incredibly useful for students and Baxter even offered their facilities for future tours to our SWE-UCLA chapter. Students were also treated to Enzo's pizza courtesy of Baxter BioScience.

Nadine Wong

EWI Co-Chair

Helping the Undecided: Major Fair

The second annual Engineering Major Fair, hosted by SWE-UCLA, took place on Tuesday, November 8 and was a huge success! Undeclared major students, as well as engineering students considering changing their major, came out in packs to chat with student representatives from each engineering discipline and get the inside scoop on each field. Attendees were able to ask questions about careers they could choose in different engineering majors, classes they would get to take, course load, professors, and more! The SWE major chair committee did a great job organizing food for the event, publicizing, and talking to students. The event was co-hosted with TBP and ESUC. It was great to see some faces from these other engineering clubs too!

Amanda West

Membership Chair

Intel Info Session

On November 10^th, SWE-UCLA hosted an info session for Intel with Dani Napier Harrison, Global Program Manager representing the company. She presented an overview of Intel’s various sectors of production, explaining the roles of various engineering disciplines, in particular, computer science, electrical, industrial, and mechanical engineering in the production process. After that, Dani talked about Etiquette with Employers, giving tips on the job hunting process. She also talked about various aspects of interview, including attire, types of questions, and follow-up. At the end of the infossession, Dani gave out a netbook by raffle.

Qiao Huang

Treasurer

Reaching Out to the Girl Scouts

Trick-or-treating wasn't the only thing on one's minds during the Halloween weekend. On October 29th, 2011,SWE-LA Professionals and SWE-UCLA partnered up to volunteer and table at the Girltopia event, an event leading up to the big 100th anniversary of the Girl Scout Foundation. An estimated 12,000 girls attended Girltopia that day at the Los Angeles Convention Center making it one of the most outstanding expositions for young girls. Thousands of girls gathered to have fun, find adventure, speak their minds, and be inspired. Girls of all ages, from kindergarten through 12th grade, were encouraged to explore Leadership, Arts & Culture, Business, Environment, and most relevant to SWE, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). SWE volunteers met thousands of girls and introduced not only them, but their parents as well, to the wonderful world of engineering and the many opportunities it has for them. Children were invited to play a small game, where they were introduced to a few basic concepts regarding circuits. In addition, girls were also invited to partake in the upcoming 2012 WOW, That's Engineering! Day. We can only hope that there will be enough space for all of the girls who expressed interest that day!

Christine DeSario

Outreach Chair

More Than Just a Potato Chips Company

On Thursday, October 6th, SWE hosted a PepsiCo Frito Lay Interview Workshop and Infosession. The turnout was highly successful with over 50 sign-ins and a tightly packed room. The presentation started promptly after people got settled down with food and drinks, as popular music was playing in the background to set an energetic and fun mood. The two presenters, Tim Lin and Brandon Endress, got off to a quick start about the principles that PepsiCo Frito Lay are instilling within their company and consumers. Contrary to the junk food reputation many people connect with to the name PepsiCo FritoLay, the company has a mission to advocate healthy lifestyles and eating habits. They have made efforts to make their products more health conscious yet still with the same great taste. Additionally, they strongly advocate for environmental sustainability, as they enforce ways to more efficiently use the earth's natural resources in packaging all their products. The company presentation was followed by a brief presentation on how people

should conduct themselves in a behavioral interview. They gave out handy tips on how to prepare answers to tough questions under stress, as well as what to research about a company before heading in to talk to recruiters. The workshop was very interactive as it was conducted in a Q&A style and the presenters gave personal examples about their experiences. At the end, the recruiters stayed back and conducted a few mock interviews, as well as collected resumes from students interested in working for the company.

Priscilla Lok

Publicity Chair

National Conference 2011: Raising the Heights of Innovation

On Wednesday, October 12th, twelve of our officers arrived at LAX boarding the flight that brought us to the long awaited national conference in Chicago, Illinois. Our flight arrived at O'Hare Airport in Chicago at around 5:30 am on Thursday. Despite the lack of sleep and a long tiring flight, the group was excited to see Chicago, some for the very first time. We arrived at our hotel, Embassy Suites and delved into some hot continental breakfast and coffee. After an hour of eating, members of Team Tech quickly changed and got ready for their presentation practice at the conference center. In groups, we allmade our way to the conference center for check-in and registration and for the welcome luncheon that awaited us. After eating lunch, we started to explore the conference center and the various workshops that took place from 10 am to 5 pm each day of the conference. That night we had dinner at the "hospitalities suites" hosted by different companies that attended the conference where we not only enjoyed delicious food but also began our hunt for freestuff. We were glad to be in bed after a long exhausting day of adventure.

The next day was again full of enlightening workshops and most importantly the big career fair. All of the officers attended the career fair where we were able to talk to the many companies that were recruiting interns and full time employees. I was able to talk to the biotechnology companies that were there and even had a great conversation with one of the

representatives from Life Technologies. The career fair was definitely an eye-opening and great learning experience. We had dinner at one of Chicago's famous pizzerias and tried amazing Chicago deep-dish pizza.

On Saturday, many of the officers explored Chicago, after finally being able to catch up on some sleep. We walked around downtown Chicago, checked out shops on Michigan Avenue, as well as the many landmarks including the Bean which reflected the entire city of Chicago. As a part of the adventure, we were able to bond and get to know each of the officers more. That night, we attended our last event of the conference, the Celebrate SWE banquet. There, we heard encouraging speeches from the different keynote speakers and even got to experience Chicago's famous entertainer, Roxy Bellows. The conference came to a smooth close, and we traveled back to our hotel.

We were able to sleep in on Sunday for a little bit before we had to catch our flight at 1 pm back to Los Angeles. We were all tired after finally arriving back at LAX around 4:30 pm. All in all, I thought this was a very rewarding and valuable experience that I'm sure all of us officers would cherish for a very long time.

Tiffany Yeh

Historian

Bonding With the Alumni

Every quarter, the executive board of SWE-UCLA meets up with SWE-UCLA alumni, all of who were previous officers for an Alumni Advisory Board Meeting. This fall, we met on Tuesday, October 4 in the Rice Conference Room on the 6^th floor of Boelter Hall. The purpose of this meeting is for current executive officers to network and gain insights from past alumni to continue to be successful and improve events held by SWE-UCLA. Furthermore, these meetings are to keep alumni updated with what is going on with SWE-UCLA.

At this quarter’s meeting, we had a recap of past events, including the success of Open House, Recruitment opportunities, and Mentorship events in the beginning of the year. We also discussed future events, including infosessions and Nationals. In addition to all the events that SWE-UCLA hosts, we also discussed our major project – Team Tech. This year’s Team Tech project was a phone charger; discussion for ideas for next year’s Team Tech is still in the works. We have asked alumni to give us input and ideas for our next Team Tech project. Although a bit early, we discussed Evening with Industry (EWI) company recruitment, and how to effectively get companies interested in our event. A speaker for EWI has already been chosen with a few backups so that the EWI Co-Chairs will not be rushing last minute to find a speaker at our signature event. Even further into the future, we also discussed possibilities for fundraising for our Regional Conference. This year, it will be held in Hawaii and our current funds are not enough to send all of our executive officers to this conference. Lastly, there was talk about our End-of-Year banquet. This year, SWE-UCLA is turning 40, and we’re excited to have alumni come together at this banquet to celebrate all the memories they’ve made with SWE-UCLA. Although still in the planning stages, we’re hoping to contact most alumni from the past and inviting them for a reunion at UCLA. In addition to inviting alumni to our events, we’re hoping to pair alumni mentors with student mentees. This program will encourage mentors and mentees to meet face to face at least once a quarter, and communicate actively online. Overall, the meeting was a success as the current executive board obtained advice from alumni on future events, and how to improve on past ones. We’re looking forward to next quarter’s alumni meeting as well.

Virginia Wei

Internal Vice President

Kicking off the Year with Mentorship

On Wednesday, September 28th, Undeclared Engineering mentees and mentors gathered in the Court of Sciences to kick start SWE’s first Fall Mentorship event (co-hosted with TBP and ESUC). Their mission? To explore the streets of Westwood and seek out its icons – the places every Bruin loves to go! Mentors formed partnerships and led teams of three or four mentees each. The teams snapped pictures of their treks from Diddy Reise to Mr. Noodle, from Mr. Noodle to the Village Center Theatre, and beyond. Spurred on by warning texts, all teams rushed back to Boelter Hall for their first check-in before the final one-minute alert was sent out. From there, they boldly went where few freshmen have gone before: the deserted “Dungeon” on the second floor of Boelter, the only elevator to SEL, and the Harry Potter Stairs. Half an hour later, everyone gathered in the Boelter Penthouse to enjoy some pizza and light refreshments. Clearly in the lead was Team Purple, who earned twenty-four points out of thirty-two. All other teams tallied at either twenty-one or twenty points. While Team Blank was in the latter category, they demonstrated a wonderful propensity for creativity that placed them as the runner-up for first place. Everyone received prizes, with the top four teams winning some UCLA swag!

On the following Wednesday, October 5th, SWE held a workshop for undeclared engineers along with TBP and ESUC. After all the mentees and mentors grabbed some Socko’s sandwiches, Erkki Corpuz and three of his fellow academic counselors gave a very informative presentation interspaced with entertaining photos and startling statistics about all of UCLA’s

engineering majors. The Q&A session that followed saw many raised hands from the attending mentees who were able to voice their individual concerns to the helpful experts present. The mentees and mentors then formed teams and constructed escape plans from a

deserted island using all the items each engineer thought up of beforehand. The myriad of creative methods ranged from hilarious to thoughtful to bizarre. After each team shared their plans amidst general laughter and cheer, the mentees then spoke to their mentors about the latters’ experiences with their majors. The evening concluded with a raffle with prizes such as SWE t-shirts.

Both events had a great turnout and were a wonderful success! Every mentee and mentor who attended either event received an email of the contact list for everyone else who attended. They were both great ways to meet new friends – both from the mentees and mentors. Many mentees contacted their mentors after the scavenger hunt and workshop to further strengthen their mentor-mentee relationship.

Amy Lin

Mentorship Chair

Open House

SWE-UCLA kicked off its first general meeting of the year this past Thursday, September 29^th at 6 pm in the Rice room in Boelter Hall. The meeting was a huge success with an overwhelming amount of underclassmen eager to join and become involved with SWE. The executive board had prepared a presentation for the attendees to properly inform them about all the SWE events, info sessions, projects, committees and much more! We started out with a general introduction about Society of Women Engineers and its background, the national chapter and organization, and its growing impact in engineering, industry, and society. We then provided valuable information about the best ways of getting involved with SWE: outreach events, mentorship programs, info sessions, socials, professor luncheons, Evening With Industry (the largest student run event in the school of engineering), career and internship opportunities, networking, workshops, etc. We then quizzed the students to see who was paying the most attention during our presentation and gave out SWEet prizes like t-shirts and cups to those that had the correct answers! Virginia Wei, our internal vice president, was kind enough to prepare signup sheets for students who were interested in joining committees (Evening With Industry, Mentorship, Major Committee Chairs, and Team Tech). Nadine Wong and Ariana Thaker, our EWI chairs, held a small info session after open house to recruit potential students that wanted to help out setting up for the event ahead of time since it requires a lot of preparation beforehand. Finally, we concluded our meeting with some SWEet treats (Diddy Riese cookies) for all the attendees. We hope to see you all at our upcoming events – it’s going to be a great year!

Ramita Sawhney

External Vice President

The Beginning of Yet Another SWEet Year!

The 2011-2012 officers started off this new school year with our first event, the SWE Officers' Retreat. It took place on September 24th through the 25th, the weekend before school officially began. Bright and early on Saturday, the group headed to Sunset Recreation Center for a fun-filled four hours at UCLA's very own Challenge Course. The Challenge Course was indeed challenging as we were able to come face to face with our fear of height and were ableto learn the valuable lesson of teamwork. Through working together, we completed many tasks, one of them being Maui-to-Oahu in which the whole team had to get from one "island"

(wooden block) to another "island" only by the use of two wooden beams. After a long, rewarding experience at the Challenge

Course, we headed to our hotel for check-in and showers before dinner.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant in Culver City, accompanied by Bill Goodin, his wife, and our faculty advisor, Professor Andrea Kasko. Over the course of dinner, we again got to know each other better and were able to have very interesting conversations with Bill, his wife, and Professor Kasko. After about two and a half hours of dining, the group headed back to the hotel to change and prepare for our next adventure, Moonlight Ice Skating! We ended our day after ice skating at 1 am. All of us were glad to be back in our hotel rooms to sleep and recharge for the day to come when our first executive board meeting would take place.

The next morning we got up at around 9 am to have continental breakfast provided by the hotel. Our first E-board meeting officially started at 10 am. We brainstormed and talked about the events for this upcoming quarter. After two hours of intense planning and discussion, we concluded our officers' retreat and headed back to UCLA in preparation for the SWEet year to come!

Tiffany Yeh

Historian